Islamic extremists terrorizing eastern Libya

By Abigail Hauslohner, Published: October 26

DARNA, Libya — Operating from the shadows, armed Islamist extremists are terrorizing the eastern Libyan city of Darna, six weeks after the deadly attack on the U.S. mission in Benghazi threw a spotlight on Libya’s growing religious extremism.

A campaign of bombings and death threats aimed at Libyan government targets is being blamed on armed Islamist extremists, including the city’s most powerful militia, the Abu Slim Martyrs Brigade, whose ideology residents say is akin to al-Qaeda’s

What is unfolding here may be the most extreme example of the confrontation underway across Libya, underscoring just how deeply the fundamentalists have sown their seeds in the security vacuum that has defined Libya since the fall of Moammar Gaddafi last September.

The extremists have continued to operate here despite the popular backlash that followed last month’s attack in Benghazi, 156 miles to the west, and despite fears of possible retaliation by the United States, whose unmanned drone aircraft can now be heard humming overhead almost every day.

For now, the militants appear to have taken cover in urban homes and farms in the remote Green Mountains that surround the city. But officials say the local government remains powerless to stop them, even as the extremists push their ideology just as fervently as before.

“No one will stop anyone from doing anything,” said Fathalla al-Awam, the head of the largely toothless local council, and militants are free to come and go from the city and surrounding areas as they please. “There’s no police, no army and no militias. Nothing. It’s an open city from east and west.’’

Some Libyans say the extremist views are held much more broadly than just among the Islamist militias themselves, a fact they said the United States has failed to understand in the wake of the Benghazi attack. Not all of the extremists in Darna or elsewhere in Libya belong to a group, they said. But those who share al-Qaeda’s ideology are many, they said, and that creates ample opportunity for recruitment.

“It’s a way of thinking,” said Saad Belgassim, who used to work as a bureaucrat in Darna’s now defunct court system. “They kidnap people like they do in Afghanistan. They delude young people and send them off to bomb themselves.”

In some ways, the sway that Islamists hold here is not a surprise. Neglected, conservative and desperately poor under Gaddafi, Darna stood out for its fierce Islamist resistance to the old regime — and for sending more jihadists to Iraq during the U.S. occupation than any other place in Libya.

The latest bombing here came early Thursday morning, when an explosion ripped through a building on the city’s eastern outskirts that local authorities had hoped to use to support a new security force. Often, the locals say, the target is a car belonging to an official or journalist who has dared to defy the militias. A newly appointed police chief was slain in broad daylight last March with a quick round of bullets to the back as he filled up his tank at the gas station.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE

President Obama dodges the elephant in the room - twice.

BREIBART: Kyle Clark, a political reporter for Denver news station 9News, asked Obama, "Were the Americans under attack at the consulate in Benghazi Libya denied requests for help during that attack?"

Obama merely said, "nobody wants to find out more" about what happened than he does, and the administration was still gathering facts to "find out exactly what happened." Earlier in the day, a report came out that revealed the Obama administration denied the urgent pleas for help from CIA agents in Libya during the attacks.

"Well, the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened," Obama asserted. "These are folks who served under me who I had sent to some very dangerous places. Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do."

When Clark pressed Obama a second time, the President again punted, answering, "we are finding out exactly what happened."

Obama protested, "the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives," the first of which was to "make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to."

E-mails released this week, though, revealed the Obama administration knew within two hours that al-Qaeda affiliated terrorists were behind the attacks, and on Friday the father of a slain Navy SEAL who disobeyed orders and went to the consulate to help said the Obama administration's claims of ignorance are "a pack of lies."

Charles Woods, the father of Ty Woods, said his son "disobeyed" his orders not to go the U.S. consulate and was an "American hero" for having the "moral strength to do what was right," even if "that would professionally cost him his job" -- or his life.

Woods also said that if "those people in the White House were as courageous" as his son and had his moral strength, they would have "given permission, not denied permission" immediately after they found out about the attacks for CIA agents to go to the consulate to help protects the Americans the terrorists were attacking.

Below is the transcript of News9's exchange with the President:


KYLE CLARK: Were the Americans under attack at the consulate in Benghazi Libya denied requests for help during that attack? And is it fair to tell Americans that what happened is under investigation and we'll all find out after the election?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, the election has nothing to do with four brave Americans getting killed and us wanting to find out exactly what happened. These are folks who served under me who I had sent to some very dangerous places. Nobody wants to find out more what happened than I do. But we want to make sure we get it right, particularly because I have made a commitment to the families impacted as well as to the American people, we're going to bring those folks to justice. So, we're going to gather all the facts, find out exactly what happened, and make sure that it doesn't happen again but we're also going to make sure that we bring to justice those who carried out these attacks.

KYLE CLARK: Were they denied requests for help during the attack?

PRESIDENT OBAMA: Well, we are finding out exactly what happened. I can tell you, as I've said over the last couple of months since this happened, the minute I found out what was happening, I gave three very clear directives. Number one, make sure that we are securing our personnel and doing whatever we need to. Number two, we're going to investigate exactly what happened so that it doesn't happen again. Number three, find out who did this so we can bring them to justice. And I guarantee you that everyone in the state department, our military, the CIA, you name it, had number one priority making sure that people were safe. These were our folks and we're going to find out exactly what happened, but what we're also going to do it make sure that we are identifying those who carried out these terrible attacks.

Permanent Secret Drone Base Taking Shape in Africa

WASHPOST/DJIBOUTI CITY, Djibouti — Around the clock, about 16 times a day, secret drones take off or land at a U.S. military base here, the combat hub for the Obama administration’s counterterrorism wars in the Horn of Africa and the Middle East.

Some of the unmanned aircraft are bound for Somalia, the collapsed state whose border lies just 10 miles to the southeast. Most of the armed drones, however, veer north across the Gulf of Aden to Yemen, another unstable country where they are being used inan increasingly deadly war with an al-Qaeda franchise that has targeted the United States.

Camp Lemonnier, a sun-baked Third World outpost established by the French Foreign Legion, began as a temporary staging ground for U.S. Marines looking for a foothold in the region a decade ago. Over the past two years, the U.S. military has clandestinely transformed it into the busiest Predator drone base outside the Afghan war zone, a model for fighting a new generation of terrorist groups.

The Obama administration has gone toextraordinary lengths to conceal the legal and operational details of its targeted-killing program. Behind closed doors, painstaking debates precede each decision to place an individual in the cross hairs of the United States’ perpetual war against al-Qaeda and its allies.

Increasingly, the orders to find, track or kill those people are delivered toCamp Lemonnier. Virtually the entire 500-acre camp is dedicated to counterterrorism, making it the only installation of its kind in the Pentagon’s global network of bases.

Secrecy blankets most of the camp’s activities. The U.S. military rejected requests from The Washington Post to tour Lemonnier last month. Officials cited “operational security concerns,” although they have permitted journalists to visit in the past.

After a Post reporter showed up in Djibouti uninvited, the camp’s highest-ranking commander consented to an interview — on the condition that it take place away from the base, at Djibouti's lone luxury hotel. The commander, ArmyMaj. Gen. Ralph O. Baker, answered some general queries but declined to comment on drone operations or missions related to Somalia or Yemen.

Despite the secrecy, thousands of pages of military records obtained by The Post — including construction blueprints, drone accident reports and internal planning memos — open a revealing window into Camp Lemonnier. None of the documents is classified and many were acquired via public-records requests.

Taken together, the previously undisclosed documents show how the Djibouti-based drone wars sharply escalated early last year after eight Predators arrived at Lemonnier. The records also chronicle the Pentagon’s ambitious plan to further intensify drone operations here in the coming months.

The documents point to the central role played by the Joint Special Operations Command (JSOC), which President Obama has repeatedly relied on to execute the nation’s most sensitive counterterrorism missions.

About 300 Special Operations personnel plan raids and coordinate drone flights from inside a high-security compound at Lemonnier that is dotted with satellite dishes and ringed by concertina wire. Most of the commandos work incognito, concealing their names even from conventional troops on the base.

Other counterterrorism work at Lemonnier is more overt. All told, about 3,200 U.S. troops, civilians and contractors are assigned to the camp, where they train foreign militaries, gather intelligence and dole out humanitarian aid across East Africa as part of a campaign to prevent extremists from taking root.

In Washington, the Obama administration has taken a series of steps to sustain the drone campaign for another decade, developing an elaborate new targeting database, called the “disposition matrix,” and a classified “playbook” to spell out how decisions on targeted killing are made.

Djibouti is the clearest example of how the United States is laying the groundwork to carry out these operations overseas. For the past decade, the Pentagon has labeled Lemonnier an “expeditionary,” or temporary, camp. But it is now hardening into the U.S. military’s first permanent drone war base.

READ THE REST OF THE STORY HERE AT THE WASHINGTON POST

Things in Khartoum go boom!

TIME:On Oct. 23, an enormous explosion erupted around a government-run ammunitions factory on the outskirts of Sudan‘s capital Khartoum. Terrified residents in the area reported a blackout, the whizz of a rocket, then a huge blast which sent white sparks into the night sky and materiel flying in all directions. While the first official report suggested that it was due to an accidental explosion in a storage room, Khartoum later blamed Israel for launching the attack. “We believe that Israel is behind it,” said Information Minister Ahmed Belal Osman adding that the planes had approached from the east.

The Sudanese government claims that four Israeli strike planes launched the attack, which partially destroyed al-Yarmouk ammunition factory and killed two civilians. “The main purpose is to frustrate our military capabilities and stop any development there and ultimately weaken our national sovereignty,” Osman said adding that “Sudan reserves the right to strike back at Israel.” Meanwhile, the spokesperson of the Sudanese army (SAF), Al-Sawarmi Khalid Saad, suggested there could be spies within the SAF as well; the military had had plans to relocate the factory. He also said that Israel had previously voiced their concern about the factory but had acted on false information that they were producing heavy weapons.

The strike could be the latest incident of a longstanding clandestine war between Sudan and Israel—spurred by the latter’s desire to thwart the alleged supply of weapons from or via Sudan to Hamas, the Islamist group ensconced in the Gaza Strip. It’s believed that, with a growing number of seaborne arms shipments from Iran, a Hamas ally, getting seized and confiscated, Tehran has used Sudan as a staging ground to supply Hamas’s fighters overland.

Still, analysts have voiced scepticism over Khartoum’s latest accusations. “The Sudanese officials accounts seem a bit far fetched,” Sudan expert at Jane’s Intelligence Richard Cochrane told TIME. “If the aircrafts were supposedly radar evading then how did they know were four?” Cochrane also highlighted the possibility that it was an accidental explosion in the storage room, as had initially been reported by the Khartoum state governor. “There has been a lot of pressure on the Sudanese regime internally. Military campaigns in the South are not going well, there’s social unrest on the streets, a declining economy,” says Cochrane. “These are times of internal pressure when the regime would be keen to deflect attention outwards and Israel has always been a prime candidate”

Sudanese political analyst Alhajj Hamad challenges claims that there were four planes which conducted the attack. Instead, Hamad concludes from speaking with military sources, there was only one plane, which was a drone. He also says that his military sources say the air strike did not target the factory but was actually very specific. “It was targeting a drone ammunition store next to the factory, which in turn affected the factory,” he told TIME. “As usual there is an official story, and another story.” Fueling rumors of further obfuscation, local reporters say they were prevented from viewing the attack site.

While Sudan’s information minister stated that the factory made “traditional weapons,” it appears there might have been something more valuable. According to Israeli military analyst Alon Ben-David, it must have been a considerably high valuable target for Israel. “You don’t send four strike fighters 1900km to destroy a factory that produces grad rockets,” Ben-David told TIME. “It also puts into question whether strike aircrafts were actually used.” It would have been a major operation requiring refueling, support aircrafts, electronic mission aircrafts and rescue support, explains Ben-David. “A lot to just prevent arms smuggling.”

Israel Defence Minister Ehud Barak refused to comment on Channel 2 News, saying “I have nothing I can say about the matter.”

If Khartoum’s allegations are correct, this will not be the first time Israel has struck out at Sudan. In 2011, Israel launched an attack on a car in Port Sudan which killed two people. Rumours say one of the people killed was a high ranking Hamas official. At the time, Ali Karter, Sudan’s Foreign Minister, said Israel had launched the attack to ruin Sudan’s chances of being removed from the U.S. list of state sponsors of terrorism. They had been placed on the list in 1997 for supporting various terrorist groups and harboring Osama bin Laden during the 1990s. In 2009, Israel was blamed for reported drone attacks on weapons smuggling convoys in northeastern Sudan. In 2010, Mahmoud Mabhouh, a key Hamas arms smuggler, was assassinated in Dubai. Israel declined to comment on all these incidents.

Sudan appears to be taking this latest attack seriously. Sudan’s envoy to the UN Security Council Daffa-All Elhag Osman has said he intends to file an official complaint. And Khartoum has said it’s planning decisive actions against Israeli interests, adding that they now have the right to do so when and how they choose. Whether or not Sudan has the capability, though, is far less certain. For all the bluster, analysts aren’t expecting much of a retaliation. Although it might have only been an ammunition storage depot, the attack could mean much more for Tel Aviv.“These kind of attacks are always an example of one’s abilities,” says Abon-David. “If you go the same distance east, they have demonstrated their capability to reach Tehran at a crucial time.”

Read more: http://world.time.com/2012/10/25/did-israel-bomb-a-sudanese-ammunition-depot/#ixzz2ALgcER2o

US Drone beamed Benghazi attack live - WH doesn't respond.

Credit: various news sources/NY POST:

Inside sources say the U.S. military had Predator drone flying over the Benghazi consulate during the attack that claimed the life of ambassador Christopher Stevens, Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods, and agent Sean Smith.

 That drone, as well as “other reconnaissance aircraft” seemingly observed what is now being characterized as the “final hours of the protracted battle.” 

How protracted? It has now been revealed that the last two Americans weren’t killed until more than six hours after the attack began.

Yet even as this information has been revealed, the State Department, White House, and Pentagon have refused to say what options might have been available. 

According to CBS News, a White House official revealed that, when the attack began, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies.”

That’s a remarkable admission, one that reeks of a bureaucratic mindset in which the execution of four Americans is seemingly mitigated in some fashion by the fact that “established policies” were followed. Retired CIA officer Gary Berntsen wasn’t buying that excuse. 

“You find a way to make this happen,” Berntsen contended. “There isn’t a plan for every single engagement. Sometimes you have to be able to make adjustments. They made zero adjustments in this. They stood and they watched and our people died.”

But as Ambassador Christopher Stevens and three colleagues were killed by terrorists armed with AK-47s and rocket-propelled grenade launchers, Defense Department officials were too slow to send in the troops, Berntsen said.

The Pentagon said it moved a team of special operators from Central Europe to Sigonella, Italy — about an hour flight from Libya — but gave no other details.

Fighter jets and Specter AC-130 gunships — which could have been used to help disperse the bloodthirsty mob — were also stationed at three nearby bases, sources told the network.

When the attack began, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs Martin Dempsey and Defense Secretary Leon Panetta “looked at available options, and the ones we exercised had our military forces arrive in less than 24 hours, well ahead of timelines laid out in established policies,” a White House official told the network.

Even as the administration continues to vow that the perpetrators will be brought to justice, the man identified by witnesses as a ringleader in the attack continues to walk the streets of Libya without fear of arrest.

Ahmad Abu Khattala has admitted being at the consulate during the horrific attack but has yet to be questioned by any Libyan authorities.

Abu Khattala spoke to a New York Times reporter Thursday from a hotel patio as he sipped a strawberry frappe and mocked the US and Libyan governments.

“These reports say that no one knows where I am and that I am hiding,” he boasted. “But here I am in the open, sitting in a hotel with you. I’m even going to pick up my sister’s kids from school soon.”

Lax security at the consulate was an open secret.

Stevens wrote a cable in June that there wasn’t enough security at the consulate, and he noted there had been a recent spike in attacks against “international organizations and foreign interests,” ABC News said.

The ambassador wrote another cable in August that read, “A series of violent incidents has dominated the political landscape during the Ramadan holiday.”

Stevens said that the incidents were “organized” and that the Libyan security force had “not coalesced into a stabilizing force and [provided] little deterrence.”

Several requests for additional security in Benghazi were made to the State Department prior to the attack. They were all rejected.